1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooking apparatus using barcodes, and more particularly, to a cooking apparatus using barcodes that reads a barcode attached to a package of food, thereby facilitating cooking of the food.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cooking apparatuses use various heat sources to cook food, and various different products according to heat sources are on the market. Among them is an electronic oven (also called a “microwave oven”) which uses microwaves to heat food. A conventional electronic oven usually allows a user to manually input cooking information, such as cooking time, a cooking method, and an item to be cooked, through a key input unit mounted on a front panel of the electronic oven. However, since such a conventional electronic oven requires the user to manually input the cooking information, it is sometimes difficult and inconvenient for the user to set suitable cooking conditions.
A barcode reading electronic oven has been developed to overcome the aforementioned problem, which includes a barcode reader and cooks food according to cooking information read by the barcode reader. As shown in FIG. 1A, a general electronic oven with a barcode reader includes a main body 1, a door 2 provided on a front surface of the main body 1, and a front panel 3 provided on the right of the door 2.
The front panel 3 includes an embedded barcode reader 4 for reading barcodes, which is provided on the front panel 3 at an upper portion thereof, and a display unit 5 for displaying operating states of the electronic oven, which is provided on the front panel 3 below the barcode reader 4. A key input unit 6 including a plurality of input buttons is provided on the front panel 3 below the display unit 5. The key input unit 6 includes a start button for inputting a signal to start cooking, a barcode reading button for inputting a command signal to read barcodes, a cooking method setting button for setting a cooking method, a cooking time button for setting cooking time, a plurality of numeral buttons, and the like.
The general barcode reading electronic oven may employ, instead of an embedded barcode reader 4 as shown in FIG. 1A, an external barcode reader such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Display)-type barcode reader 7 as shown in FIG. 1B or a pen-type barcode reader (not shown) connected to the electronic oven via a cable.
In the related art, all information for cooking has been recorded in bars of a barcode as shown in FIG. 2. For example, in the case where cooking is performed in two stages (i.e., first and second stages), cooking information for performing the first stage and cooking information for performing the second stage are all recorded in a barcode.
The conventional electronic oven with the barcode reader reads a barcode provided on a package of food to set cooking conditions, and cooks the food according to the set cooking conditions.
However, the conventional electronic oven with the barcode reader only has a simple function, which is to analyze cooking information recorded in the barcode and-perform cooking based on the analyzed cooking information. This requires complete cooking information to be recorded in the barcode. Thus, the conventional electronic oven with the barcode reader has a problem in that in order to record information of cooking, which is performed in a plurality of stages, in a barcode, complete cooking information for each of the stages must be recorded in the barcode. The conventional electronic oven also has a problem in that as cooking time increases, the number of barcode bits required to record information of the cooking time increases.
Electronic ovens with barcode readers may have different capabilities in reading barcodes and performing cooking. For example, the electronic ovens may have different output powers 1000 W and 1500 W, different cooking chamber capacities 20 L and 25 L, different possible cooking methods, etc. However, all of the electronic ovens cook food by reading barcodes in which the same cooking information is recorded, irrespective of their different cooking capabilities, which causes the food to be overcooked or undercooked.